Momentous Life – RV Liiving, Travels, Work & Play

We arrived in New Zealand just 10 days ago, so its been all go since we got here, today we our settled in our lovely new home just outside of Queenstown, and without doubt this is one of the most beautiful places I have lived, its breath taking here. Our first few days we stayed with friends in Auckland before we flew into Queenstown flying in over Lake Wakatipu.

As a traveling artist, with the fact that I fly from country to country, I really do have to think about my weight allowance, the normal allowance is 23kg’s checked and 7kgs carry on. I’m often quiet shocked at the lack of personal items I can have in my luggage due to my artistic endeavours. As we just recently left Thailand for 6 months to explore New Zealand. I know that this time the tools of my trade in my check allowance was 10kgs, leaving 13 for everything else, this is not an ideal situation but its just bearable at the moment, I bought more than I needed this time as I was unsure whether I could get everything I needed here to start with, so I came well prepared. We have a base in Thailand, so its easier to leave a few items behind, and the country is so affordable that rent is really cheap. Apart from our base we rent fully furnished places where ever we can. Heres a list of my items that I bought with so that I can carry on creating where ever I go.

My essential items

Laptop

Scanner

Wacom Tablet

Camera

Phone

Items that I can pick up everywhere.

Art paper

Drawing pencils

Colored pencils

Acrylic paints

Jewellery Supplies

My laptop is my number one item that I can’t live without, without it I could not keep in touch with family, friends, and run my online business. These days we have so many programs that we can use on the computer that its almost limitless. It can be easy to take it for advantage when you use it every day, but lets think about it for a minute. What do you use your computer/laptop for?

Sending & receiving emails

Social networking.

Online banking

Buying

Selling

Book keeping

Account Setting

Data Storing – writing, creating, singing

Music Making

Online business

telephone, face time chatting

google, bing for worldwide learning without leaving your chair.

Latest around the world news

weather

photo sharing

whats going on event planning

and so much more, our laptops are quiet remarkable and I’m sure you can add more to this list too. What else will our computers be able to in the near future? So Data protection and secure internet using is a must.

I’m still a traditional artist at heart and I do love creating on paper, and its a great way for me to spend some time unplugged from the computer screen and get some balance back into my life creating with raw materials. So for this I need a scanner so that I copy my art and put it online.

I also have wacom tablet, I use it for adding special effects, touch ups and enhancing certain areas of my art. I’m not really a digital artist, but I am inspired by some of and you what some of you can create, theres so many amazing special effects its awe inspiring and I would really love to develop that area more.

My camera and phone, are also essential items, because without them then I could not take great photos or videos of my products and share my experiences with you.

Finally all my pencils and paints and papera blank canvas to show a story of inspiration within creation, cause we humans do love to be inspired and inspire. My travels give me so much inspiration.

When you first read the headline to this blog post, the first thing you think of is, how positive is it when someone takes your artwork and uses it for themselves When your the one, who put all your hard work into the painting?

This is a fair statement to make, and I have thought of this myself, but my husband made me realise this. The first thing to think of is your artwork has reached a stage when someone else considers that your art is worthy of taking, and in my mind thats a positive thing. Why? I here you ask? Advertising is my first answer, first of all someone else is promoting your art and they love it so much to take it in the first place. Now I’m not condoning the fact that they stole the right of my or your artwork, but I’m trying to tell you to look at the positive rather than the negative first.

I know your first reaction what if what there selling your art as poor quality as they stole is from the internet. As most of us use poor quality jpg’s and pngs on the internet, which normally has a watermark on it. So somehow will have to try and remove the watermark, and badly before they use the image. So what are you going to do about it, it has already happened and you cannot do anything to change the fact, except take proper control to first contact them and then contact the platform they were selling your work from, in my case Etsy. Most people who do that will normally take your art down and the Etsy could shut the seller down.

So lets move in the Positives.

The first one is your art loved enough by someone who feels they can make money, this is great not only because they have the confidence to put your artwork onto there product they feel they can make money out of it. So try and find out what they did and how they used it and maybe you can offer a similar service in your business model.

The next one is FREE ADVERTISING… that means someone put money into there business hense marketing your art, that you never had too, this is a sign of success even though it came from a negative. You might be getting frustrated by now, because you might not be making a living from your artwork yet, just like me, but never the less its a sign of a first green shoot, a seed that you sowed and is growing. That in itself is priceless, its a confirmation that your heading in the right direction and your work is getting seen.

9 times out of 10 the way you found out about this is by a FAN or SOMEONE IN YOUR COMMUNITY… After a few or many years you start to realise your dream that you want to become a artist and try to make money from the things that you love to do. Because of the person you are, you naturally want to share your experience and help others to grow too, so here comes the fans of your art along with a thriving community that is there to support you and its these amazing folk who notice when something is astray and tell you about it. I can say a whole lot more than Wowsa folks. Thank you very much to all of you. Now you have found caring folk who want to help you and that is far beyond priceless its touching to the Soul. The main point here I want to make is no matter who we are and what we do in life most of us believe in the experience. The moments in time when you are present. If your like me we live for all the moments in our lives and we appreciate every second, so its great to turn as much as we can into a positive. Without my fans and my community I would not be able to do what I do, because you are the ones that enjoy what I do and add the real value in my life and that is creating. Hopefully inspiring you to follow in my footsteps. Some of you reading this will be the inspiration that inspired me and to you I carry on this message of positive thought, emotion and confirmation that your dreams are worth reaching for.

The least I can do is send a thank you gift to those who helped me find out and report the person or business. Which leads me on to “that person may be shut down and they will be known for stealing art”. They will have valuable lesson to learn here. Do not steal from others in order to be in business. You must be fair with your customers because they are huge part of your life. Most of us who buy from you want you to be honest and trust worthing more than the product itself, so have us in your heart when you do business.

As for the business concerned I received an apology email for them today which is the first I have ever received. I really appreciate that, if it was up to me I would not want there business shut down, but unfortunately its out of my control. Etsy has its own rules on copyright so were see what happens next. At the end of the day they did something wrong and will have to take responsibility for there actions.

Lastly networking, share your story because the chances are that there are other artists like you that have had a similar problem and you may be able to offer advice to help them. We all want to live in a world where we can help each other.

Negatives

1. Someone stole your art work.

2. They are selling it and making money.

3. They are not using good quality images, therefore showing your art in bad quality.

I guess you may find other negatives, but these are the main ones that I can think of at the moment.

Positive.

1. You art is loved enough by someone who feels they can make money.

2. Free Advertising

3. This is a sign of success.

4. 9 times out of 10 the way you found out about it, is by a FAN or SOMEONE IN YOUR COMMUNITY…

5. That person may be shut down and they will be known for stealing art.

What have I got to do today? My plan is to write a blog post on “My Mission” but the more I think about it, its more of a message, an understanding of where I am at today. Our visions and messages are always evolving as life is forever changing, but the core principles stay the same and thats about human and nature connection.

I always had a love for the earth and my fellow man, but we live in troubling times, but haven’t we always? Name a day where there is no war going on somewhere, or people or animal going starving. Were all locked into a system that tries to stop us in full filling our dreams. Our lives seam not to be ours, and we have lost our voice, because the machine is always churning. From the moment we wake up we are bombarded with so much information. How do you press stop and just relax? As I write this, I realise that I need to write this. Does it matter? Today I’m going to say No and stop just for me, you may find a different message so enjoy your journey…Whats my message? Well it came to me 21st September Saturday morning having a relaxing coffee with my hubby and I put pen to paper.

Magnificent Life, Where the wonder of anything can literally happen, a world of amazing people and a beautiful evolving home. We can aspire to change and live in Harmony within our earth and gain new possibilities to venture into the universe. From Star dust we came, the matter that built everything we see today, you and me. Believe in the impossible, from an explosion of a planet, from planet to life. Star dust. In each of us we want to look into the stars and see whats up there? don’t we already know? that its all ready part of us? Life, a Life we want to explore, a calling to go home, one day we will return the the stars. Shine brightly like the star that made you, that is where the magic lies. The impossible dreams are within you ready to awaken.

As I wrote this the words just fell out onto the paper and I felt amazing in the realisation that everything is fine in that moment, the moment is all we need to change to wake up and realise we matter, and I have felt that before in smaller ways. I have been listening a lot of Terence Mckenna recently, a wonderful man that really inspires me to see the wonder in life and everything. I know that this learning will never cease, because life will never cease, we are part of something larger than any god or culture, they are but a blink in the eye of time. I know now that one question will ultimately lead to another but I will keep asking because that is the learning in Life and death.

Life and Death is but a continuation, but the moment always stays the same, it is always constant in this life force.

When you wake up in the moment and realise we all came from the same, we look into the same eyes, we sense the same things, we can smell the same things, we can touch the same things, we are part of the same things, with varying shades of color there is Magnificent Life.

Life is too the travel the road untravelled before, to explore, live in harmony and not make war.

When we wake up and see the splendor in you an me, we get the opportunity to feel and see this amazing planet. Sharing our home, not owning are home, nothing belongs to us except but lifes cherished moments, something we already share. In that moment we are whole, we are part of that same star that shone so brightly, bursting to create this wonderful moment.

Our Manila trip did not go as planned, but such is life sometimes you just have to go with it 🙂 Anyways we planned a little get away to visit friends and see what had changed since the last time we were there. We took a trip to our old home in Fort Bonifacio Serendra, Global city and was amazed to see how much it had changed. The photo below was taken in the inside area of Serendra and this really was a lovely place to stay. Below the Swimming pool and gym was basket ball and badminton courts.

During our last stay Serendra was still only half built, but there were plans for so much more. In August we were both totally shocked at the growth of the area in the last 3 years, with many new condo towers built and more currently going up, along with a new business district and a huge new mall called Aura which was recently opened by Jessica Parker. 01/2013

Heres a look at the new “Aura SM Mall”

Global Activity is a hive of activity, with so much going on. Fort Bonifacio is more high end living, with everything you need from schools, supermarkets, department stores, malls, cinema, and great restaurants and also the most importantly an art store 😉 When we were last there it was without doubt the most expensive place we’ve lived at in Asia.

During this trip however we got caught out in a Tropical Storm Maring, with over 600mm of rain falling in just one day. So we were held up in our hotel for a few days, as many roads were waist and chest height and impassable by most vehicles.

With some time on my hands, this gave me the opportunity to create some new art. This is what I created while the sky was full of rain an asian style mermaid with a koi fish called “Spirit of Good Fortune” kinda apt for the situation we were in.

We stayed at The Oasis Park Ermita manila, a little boutique hotel. It was very reasonable and comfortable so we were very happy. The Food at the hotel was amazing and was one of the best places we ate during our stay Manila, although very pricy, but this was 1st class dining at its best. Home made soups started at $5.00 and was served with home made fresh bread. Mains were around $17 and the sweets up to $8. I must not forget to mention the homemade ice-crean by Chef Chris, absolutely delicious. I was told beforehand that the restaurant was very nice and has won many awards it certainly was very popular. Trip advisor reviews 4.5/5

Here’s a video or our taxi ride back to our hotel on Sunday 18th August 2013 Tropical Storm Maring. On our way back water started to come into the footwell in the car, quiet scary at the time.